


the guy next door

by scramjets



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 23:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11931384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scramjets/pseuds/scramjets
Summary: Jim Kirk would say that he's pretty satisfied with life. He's got his apartment. He's got a good job. He's got Friday night football, even if that's more Hikaru's thing than his. What he doesn't realize he's missing though, is for a near perfect stranger to stumble into his apartment and fall asleep on his couch.





	the guy next door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quixotesque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixotesque/gifts).



> For Quix, who remains an inspiration :D 
> 
> Massive thanks to Kayim, who went over this for me! Thank you again! All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> *

When Jim collects the letter from his mailbox, he flips it over, reads the return address and thinks, _damnit_ , because the return address is from the landlord and he’s not due for any bills.

Scowling, Jim rips the envelope open and takes out the letter, unfolding what turns out to be a complaints notice. It’ll match the one that had been shoved under his door that morning, scrawled on a piece of foolscap in almost unintelligible script: _your music is too loud. Kindly Turn. It. OFF after 10pm. Appreciated - LM._

Jim balls up the page and tosses into the bin provided in the corner of the mail room. He's never noticed it before and is immediately grateful for its presence.

“I have no idea what he's complaining about,” he says later that evening, when Hikaru is over and they’re watching the game.

Jim glares at the screen, at the players sweeping backwards and forwards for the ball. The screen calibration of his TV makes the grass neon, and the ball so white it hurts to look at directly.

“You have one neighbor,” Hikaru says, laughing. “One. And you manage to piss him off by doing nothing.”

“By playing music, apparently,” Jim corrects.

Hikaru dumps himself back on the couch besides him and hands Jim a beer. “Sorry, my mistake. By playing music.”

The bottle is chilly between Jim’s palms, and he uncaps it and takes a draw, wincing a little at the initial bitterness. He sniffs and leans forward to set it down on the coffee table, the bottom clinking against the surface.

On screen the game continues. American football is too mainstream for Hikaru’s taste, so what they’re watching is rugby league, which is a little more rough, more brutal, with no helmets or armour, and a lot of contact. A wave of tinny cheers erupt from the TV as one of the players dives across the scoring line with a handful of opponents attached to his back.

Hikaru hisses a breath between clenched teeth when the referee deems it a _try._  A goal, in other words. Hikaru curses and sinks further into the couch, and Jim reaches across to pat his shoulder.

“Not sure why you support these guys if they suck this much,” Jim says.

“It’s the principle of the matter,” Hikaru says, bitter. “I’ve been watching them lose for almost five years. I’m in too deep.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“I’m loyal is what I’m saying, Kirk.”

“All right,” Jim says. “I can understand that. But now I’m gonna ask if they deserve your loyalty if they’ve continued to let you down. Five years is a long time, man. How many games would they play a season?”

“... Twenty-six, if they don’t make finals.”

“So that's twenty-six by five,” Jim says. “One hundred and thirty games. A hundred thirty!”

“You can't commit yourself to a team and then bail when they lose,” Hikaru protests. “That's not how it works.”

“How many games have they won?” Jim asks.

“They’ve won a few.”

“One hundred thirty, give or take a handful of wins.” Jim shakes his head. “They’re letting you down. You're too good for that. Pick another team.”

Hikaru gives him a look that’s answer enough, and Jim relents and settles back on the couch. They then proceed to watch as Hikaru’s team manages to take the ball up to their try line and promptly choke, the player fumbling and dropping it.

Hikaru goes tense, and Jim wonders why he’s set on this. The game he gets. It’s interesting enough for a bunch of guys ferrying an oval-shaped ball up and down a field, and getting tackled repeatedly for the effort. It's the choice of team Jim doesn't get.

“What’s happening with this complaints notice?” Hikaru asks when the opposing team scores another try.

On screen, the try-scorer disappears under a tide of cheering teammates while one of the guys from Hikaru’s team -- in the purple and white uniform -- kneels on the grass with his shoulders slumped and head low.

Another team member -- Hikaru’s favourite, identifiable by his gold boots -- cuffs the guy gently on the side of his head and then pulls him up for a one-armed hug.

Hikaru continues, “Does this mean they’re going to evict you or what?”

Jim waves it away. “Next door is a jackass. I’ve checked. There’s a blanket clause for noise restriction between 10pm and 8am, but that’s it. This place is a dump, no one cares, it’s too old, and--” Jim points to the speakers that frame his TV. The small built-in ones that become indistinct if the volume goes beyond twenty. “Playing music on these are an insult to music. I have no idea what the guy next door is complaining about. Whatever he’s hearing isn’t coming from me."

“You knocked on his door and tell him that?”

Jim nods, thinking back to earlier that afternoon after he’d made the trek from the mail room to his apartment.

He’s next door to the emergency exit, so there’s no one on his left, and opposite Jim’s front door are the lifts. That had left 21-E beside him.

So Jim had knocked on 21-E’s door and then had waited a good minute in the ringing silence of the hallway.

And he’d listened hard, too, the tightness of his annoyance easing as he searched for the root cause of the complaint. The music. But all he’d heard was the muted rattle of pipes in the walls, the faint hum of electricity from the lifts, and the hint of daytime TV leaking out from further down the hall.

The apartments were mainly occupied by either really young families, or older people hanging tenaciously onto their independence. People who generally stayed quiet, in other words. Or at least quiet enough, he’d thought, flicking a glance further down the hallway when the shrill cry of a toddler broke through the relative silence.

He had given up after that. He’d catch the guy at some point and make his case clear: whatever you’re hearing dude, it’s not from me.

“Haven’t caught him yet,” Jim says now, leaning forward to grab his beer. He drains a good quarter of it and sets it back. “But I will.”

The opposing team scores another try and Hikaru makes a distressed sound.

“You done losing yet?” Jim asks. “Can we put on something we can enjoy? You’re breaking my heart, you know that?”

Hikaru folds his arms tight across his chest, jaw set as he concentrates on the TV.

It’s meant to be a fun game, even if Jim technically doesn’t follow the sport. It's the prelude to an easy weekend where he can forget about paperwork and deadlines. And complaints notices.

Remembering it is enough to set his teeth on edge again. Half of him still wanting to go next door and prove it's not his noise. Though there is also the idea of blowing his savings on a decent sound system. Give the guy next door something to _really_ complain about.

- 

Fortunately, Jim Kirk -- and his savings account -- survive together through the weekend. He'd forgotten about the guy next door and his sensitive hearing, until he wakes up on the Wednesday to another note shoved under his door.

_Turn it down. It’s 2am & people have to SLEEP. _

Jim crumples the note in his fist as he steps out into the hall, and knocks hard enough on number 21-E for his knuckles to hurt.

Silence.

“Asshole,” Jim mutters.

It annoys him that he has to go find a pen because he doesn’t have one on him, but he finds one eventually and uncrumples the note and scrawls on the back of it: _Hey, it’s not me & it’s not my music. Next time it happens, grow a pair & knock on my damn door & i’ll show you._ And he shoves that under the door and stalks back to his apartment.

He returns that night after work half expecting someone to be waiting outside his door. Or at least another note pushed under it, waiting for him. There’s neither, and Jim’s not certain if he’s more or less pissed about the situation. He kicks off his shoes and dumps his keys on the kitchen bench, and starts dinner thinking about it.

He’s met the guy next door, hasn’t he?

LM, he recalls from the first note. The handwriting scrawled like the person had rushed through it in hurry on the way out or something.

Jim wracks his brain as he cooks up the pasta, swearing when the pot bubbles over and the water hisses on the stove, spitting at him. The pasta sauce goes no better, somehow splattering all up the stove wall.

The guy next door. Jim’s got some vague idea about his height and that he wears a lot of… black, maybe. Blue?

Have they passed each other on the stairs?

Bumped into each other in the mailroom, shuffling around to get to their respective boxes while attempting to maintain a personal bubble?

Did he stew in his apartment like Jim was, annoyed at his neighbor?

Jim has no idea.

He finishes his dinner, saves the leftovers and lays out on the couch, a monstrosity that, in spite of the looks of it -- patched up and a shade of green merging with brown and speckled with blue and white and red -- Jim ends up sleeping on five nights out of the seven.

And he’s on the cusp of sleep then, watching whatever’s on TV now with his thoughts a pleasant buzz that mostly circle ‘round the fact that here he is, looking at the tail-end of twenty, and it’s not even nine and he’s ready to sleep.

(If his commute wasn’t so shitty, he wouldn’t have to get up so early, but it’s not like he can afford anywhere closer either. He’s half a mind to move anyway, everything chafing at him. The job’s all right though. He might stick it out for that. Maybe.)

Jim gets to that point between sleep and wake when there’s a fumble at the door.

It takes a while for it to register, actually, staring at the TV set flashing colors at him -- and he lifts his head, pushing through the fuzz of his thoughts because there is definitely someone at his door.

A jolt goes through his body, and his head promptly shoves half a dozen scenarios at him. Thieves. Murderers. Thieves with intent to murder. Jim brushes them away to stand, listening. He’s aware of everything now. The jeans he’s still wearing. The way the carpet is hard under his feet, worn in by past tenants.

A murmured curse comes through the door. There’s another fumble. The rattle of the doorknob.

Jim glances around the immediate area. He takes in the kitchen, the bare walls that block him in, the shadowed doorway of the bedroom and the bathroom beside that. He licks his lips and grabs the remote control off the coffee table. The plastic creaks in his grasp.

Jim opens the door without undoing the keychain. The person on the other side fumbles and then there’s the sound of keys dropping. Through the gap, Jim sees the person’s dark head.

The guy straightens, and the first thing that Jim registers is that he looks like hell. He’s pale and drawn, eyes shadowed and bleary in a way that speaks of little sleep. There’s a fine tremor to his hands as he separates the keys, finding the one he wants to slot into the keyhole, only he stops when he realizes that the lock isn’t where it’s expected to be. And the guy stares for a long moment before he looks up.

Jim recognises him in the same vague way he recognises the other tenants of the building, and so he shuts the door, unhooks the keychain and then pulls the door back open. He’s about to ask, _What’s wrong?_ or, _Can I help you?_ when the guy just straight up ambles in. He trips over Jim’s shoes in the process, grunting his annoyance before he kicks off his own shoes and staggers over to the green monstrosity where he promptly collapses.

To call Jim confused would fall greatly short of what he feels.

He stares at the back of his couch where the tips of the guy’s socked feet poke over the arm. There’s a metallic, rattling thud. That’d be the keys again.

At a momentary loss of what to do, Jim shuts his door and clicks the lock over. The guy doesn’t stir.

Jim catches himself walking slow and careful to the couch, and it turns his confusion into annoyance. This is his house. Even if the spaces are interchangeable, the things he fills them with are not. The couch, his. The lousy TV, all his. Not the best, not the latest, but his. He’s earned it. It’s his modicum of familiarity in a dozen different places. This is his space. And this guy whose only claim to any of Jim’s stuff is via a tenuous ‘maybe neighbor’ link is encroaching.  

 _Sorry, man_ , he’s about to say, the words queued up and ready to go. _But you have the wrong apartment. I’m number 19-E_. ' _Get out'_ implied and perhaps not kindly.

But then he steps around the couch where the guy’s face is already slack with sleep and mashed against the pillows so all that Jim sees is one closed eye and his nose and part of his mouth. He’d looked drawn when he was at the door, and those tight lines haven’t exactly disappeared in sleep. Instead they nestle in at the brow, as if they’ve been pressed there so hard that they’ve made themselves a permanent home.

Jim notices the scrubs next, pairs it with the hospital only a few blocks away and it’s enough to make his shoulders drop and he sighs out loud and slings himself into the beanbag on the floor.

The beans rustling make the guy shift, but he settles quickly, hands bunched up by his cheeks.

Jim just stares at his face. The TV is still on, and the bright flashes of light flicker over the guy, makes it look like he’s a part of whatever’s playing -- and so Jim watches him like he’s the most interesting show on.

-

When Jim was a kid -- real young, not even school-aged -- he had this tendency to sneak of out of his bed and into his ma’s room whenever she was on leave. He’d stand at her bed and stare at his mother until she’d felt the weight of it through sleep. Then she’d groggily let him into bed murmuring how he’d scared the living daylights out of her, and he’d cuddle into the warmth that she’d provided, uncaring.

Jim drifts into wakefulness with the distinct impression that someone was watching him. He doesn’t panic exactly, though it’s lurking in the background, ready to leap into fight-or-flight. He doesn’t panic, but he’s also not in a rush to describe the sensation as pleasant either.

The more he wakes up, the more he’s aware of what’s wrong. He’s on the beanbag for one. And he hadn’t drawn the curtains, that’s two, so the light is all on his face. He’s not hearing his alarm, either. Was it Saturday, or…?

Jim squints in the hard morning light, and groans and rubs his eyes. The TV is on, too, the volume low so what he hears is the indistinct sound of words more than anything else.

It takes a good minute more for him to finally catch sight of the guy on the couch. Where he's lying on his side, cheek pillowed on his hands, and squinting at him with the same degree of confusion.

The pain across Jim’s shoulders and down around his hips takes backseat to the face-off he’s engaged in -- both of them cowboys and the gun is the unvoiced question of, What are you doing here?

The guy looks like he’s going to say it. Please say it, Jim thinks, but the guy stops, realization unfurling across his face in a way that makes smug excitement spark in Jim’s stomach. He scrambles, pushes up on one arm as his attention jumps from Jim to the TV, to the empty coffee table, to the bare walls; to the stacks of books on the floor, then back to Jim again down on the beanbag, all with an expression of slowly mounting horror.

“Damnit,” the guy’s voice thick and gravelly, still catching up with being awake. “Where--”

“19-E,” Jim says, pleasant and with a smile, sharp as it is. “Good morning.”

The guy stares at him again, before he takes another slow look around and back to Jim, wide-eyed.

“I--”

“In the wrong apartment, yeah.”

“You--”

“Are number 19, yeah.”

The expression shifts, a flicker of annoyance that’s quickly reined back, and the guy says, his words tight, “I can speak for myself.”

“No,” Jim tells him. “No, I think you gave up that right when you decided my place was your place and drooled all over my couch.”

The guy quickly swipes a hand across the lower half of his face.

“Right,” the guy says. “My apologies.”

There’s a bit of an accent on his words there, now that the confusion and the sleep has cleared a little. It makes Jim lean forward on his beanbag before he catches himself and eases back, the beans shifting against his spine.

“No harm done,” Jim says expansively, moving to get up, ignoring the way everything hurts.

There is a reason why he doesn’t sleep on the beanbag.

The guy takes the cue for what it is, stumbling off the couch and following him to the door with a distinct lack of grace that reminds Jim of how he ended up in his apartment in the first place.

He -- hospital guy, nurse, doctor, whatever he is -- shoves his feet in his shoes and there’s a moment at the door where they both pause until the guy goes, “Thanks. Sorry again for--” and gestures.

Jim tells him, “No problem,” and opens the door.

The guy ducks his head in a half-nod -- the tips of his ears are red -- before stepping past and leaving. Jim makes a point of waving and saying, _Anytime_! and shuts the door after him.

The apartment is quiet after that. Jim draws a breath between his teeth to fill the silence up. He thinks _breakfast_ resolutely as he rubs the knot at the base of his neck, and makes a detour to the lounge to turn off the TV. It's there he catches sight of the bunch of keys on the floor by the couch.

Jim sighs, bends, and scoops them up. He heads back to the door and steps out, and stops short.

Sure, he had expected the guy to be standing outside his own front door, that much is true. But Jim had also expected the guy’s front door to be further down the hall, or maybe up or down a level. Not right next to his _._

“It’s you,” Jim’s voice does that funny high-pitched thing in his excitement. “It’s _you_ , you asshole--” and breaks off into laughter.

The guy -- LM -- stands stiff, hands tight by his side. It’s brilliant. Perfect. Because now they both know that Jim isn’t the one with the music. There is no _way_ with Jim’s lousy setup and his bare minimum furniture.

“You forgot your keys,” Jim says, holding them out.

“Thank you,” LM says, half turning to accept them and quickly turning back.

His fingers are a warm shock against Jim’s own. One that Jim doesn’t expect and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans with his fingers curled to keep the heat in.

The hallway is silent save for the metallic clinking of LM sorting through his keys. Jim’s face hurts from grinning at the back of LM’s neck, and LM must feel it, he _must_ , because his shoulders slump and he turns to him again. His eyes are darker in the hallway, Jim notices, more brown where they had been green in Jim’s place. Jim also sees the bitten quality of LM’s lower lip, really red and sore looking.

“Sorry for that, too,” LM says, and Jim looks up. There’s a pause before he then goes, “You… might get another letter from the landlord. Depending on when they sent it. I’ll let them know that it’s…”

“Not me?” Jim supplies gently when LM fails to continue.

“Not you,” LM says, hard.

“Hope you find the one doing it,” Jim says, cheerful.

“Thanks,” LM says, giving him another look before he open the door and hurries inside.

Jim catches a snippet of a TV set, a couch in the same orientation to how Jim has it set up, and then he’s staring at the door, number 21 in shiny chrome on the front of it.

-

Hikaru comes over that night with pizza.

“You should have seen his face, oh man,” Jim says.

“What I want to know is,” Hikaru’s saying over Jim’s gloating. “Have you been hearing the music? The one he’s complaining about?”

Jim sobers and tilts his head, reviews his last few nights, and some of the ones beyond that. He shakes his head.

“No idea. It’s probably him. If he’s wrecked enough that he’s walking into other people’s apartments like that, then I’d say he’s hearing stuff, too.”

“What do you think he’s hearing?” Hikaru asks. “Did he look like a jazz guy?”

Jim stares at Hikaru until the question clicks. Then he thinks of LM’s face, stubbled and creased from sleep, confusion in every line, and the way there was also annoyance or frustration thinly hidden behind it, trying to claw its way to the surface.

Expressive, is what his mother would have called it, as in, “Jeez, you only have to look at his face to know what he’s thinking,” and it makes Jim wonder what it would look like for all of that to soften to a smile. He bets it would look nice.

Hikaru calling his name snaps him back to reality, and he says, “I dunno, classic rock, maybe?”

“You talking about him or are you talking about you?”

Jim finishes off the rest of his beer so that he doesn’t have to answer, and then tells Hikaru that he’s ready to watch Hikaru’s team lose now. Which they do. Spectacularly.

-

After the incident, Jim starts seeing LM everywhere. It’s like their schedules have synced, or like that phenomenon where a random thing or fact is suddenly everywhere now that you've noticed it. That Baader-Meinhof thing. They catch each other as they leave or enter their respective apartments. They run into each other in the mail room. There was that one day where Jim walked half a block behind LM, aware of the span of the guy’s shoulders and the length of his step as they both headed home.

“I feel like I should ask your name,” Jim says in the lift as they head up to the fifth floor together. “If we're gonna keep running into each other like this.”

The elevator shudders. LM has his hands tight around the rail, enough so that his knuckles stand out. He’s wearing his scrubs again, and there’s that washed out quality to his face, but that could also be the lift. Jim knows that LM usually uses the stairs, but they’re closed today for whatever reason.

“Jim Kirk.”

“Leonard,” the guy says eventually and through clenched teeth.

Overhead, the lights change from 4 to 5, and the lift comes to a short stop a beat later. It takes a solid five seconds before the doors open though, and Leonard sweeps past once they do, chased by the faint smell of antiseptic.

Jim follows. “Leonard... no-last-name?”

Leonard gives him a look. It’s a little wide-eyed, like the conversation has only caught up with him.

“Uh. McCoy. Leonard McCoy.”

Thing is, Jim had thought he’d be satisfied with that, knowing his name, but he’s not, so he asks, “Busy day?” gesturing to Leonard’s scrubs.

There’s a shifting in Leonard’s expression that Jim can’t read. “Busy enough,” he says, gruff.

“You want a drink?”

“What?”

In truth, Jim’s not sure he’s heard himself, too. So he asks again, “You want to come in for a drink?”

Leonard hesitates. Jim’s about to tell him not to worry about it, when Leonard says to wait a second, ducking into his apartment before he comes back out and hands Jim a bottle of what turns out to be an expensive scotch. Something one of his old friends half a country away would’ve creamed himself over.

“For the... misunderstanding,” Leonard tells him before Jim questions it, or manages to tell him that he had been thinking a beer.

“Oh, wow,” Jim says. The bottle is a hefty weight in his hand, the glass cool to touch. “Keep complaining. I don’t even care anymore.”

Leonard gives him a wry look at that.

“Still,” Jim says. “Offer stands. Maybe not this though,” lifting the bottle. “I have work tomorrow. I assume you do, too.”

Leonard does end up staying for that beer. He also makes an appearance that Friday night.

-

When Leonard comes around, Hikaru proceeds to cheerfully introduce himself. Shaking Leonard’s hand with a grin that gives Jim an almost visceral reminder to when he and Hikaru were younger, high school sometime before Jim had moved off again. And he had introduced Hikaru to Gaila, who he was totally into but playing cool with.

They had been sitting around a table in the local food court, and Hikaru was saying things like, _Oh, yeah, Jim told me that about you_ , and: _Yeah, Jim mentioned that, right Jim?_ Saying all those things with a degree of obtuseness that it had taken all of Jim’s self control not to kick Hikaru underneath the table.  

There is no table this time round. They’re standing next to the small kitchen, next to the boxes of pizza that Hikaru had put on the kitchen island, so most of what Jim’s aware of is the smell of tomato and cheese, and also the heat that’s slowly climbing up the back of his neck.

Leonard passes him a look with his eyebrows up, and Jim shrugs something that he hopes says, I don’t know. Just roll with it.

They migrate to the couch and TV, and Hikaru tunes to the sports channel.

“He likes to lose,” Jim tells Leonard when they’re all seated.

Jim’s got a beer wedged between his knees and the wet and cold of it seeps through his jeans.

“Don’t listen to him,” Hikaru calls from the beanbag, throwing a balled up napkin in Jim’s direction. “He doesn’t understand loyalty.”

Jim waves the finger at him and turns back to Leonard, who’s watching the screen and holding his slice of pizza like he’s forgotten it exists.

“What is going on,” Leonard says, once the game is in motion and someone from Hikaru’s team disappears under a pile of opposing team members. “Is the winner of this game the person who has the most concussions?”

“It’s sport. Rugby,” Jim says. “Now eat your pizza.”

Leonard does, after a second.

Hikaru’s team is losing, as per usual.

The point gap grows that by halftime, Jim says, “They should just call it a win already. Why the torture.”

On the floor, Hikaru groans about the lack of defense and missed plays and marking.

Jim glances to Leonard who has cosied up at the end of the couch. He stirs after a moment, glances across and catches Jim’s eye. Jim grins at him, mostly because he can’t help it, but also because of Hikaru.

 _See_ , he wants to say. _I don’t get why he’s so hung up on this._

Leonard studies him a moment longer, and glances back to the screen.

“When I was a boy,” he says, starting slowly before settling into what he’s saying. “I played baseball for school with a team so lousy that our best pitcher could barely throw a ball straight.”

“And you quit, right?” Jim says.

“You’re kidding me with that question, aren’t you? Jesus Christ. I turned up to every practice and my old man turned up to every game. Last one of the season of my graduating year, we won. Only by a margin, but we won. Nothing I’ve ever done has measured up since.”

“Really?” Jim demands. “Nothing?”

“Keep this guy, Kirk,” Hikaru calling out at the same time, and Jim ignores the way he’s pumping his fist from where he’s sitting on the floor. “He gets it!”

“But seriously,” Jim swivels on the couch as he talks, knee hitting Leonard’s thigh. “At what point do you give up? We are talking about zero rewards. You’re not winning. You’re losing. Consistently.”

As if to prove a point, there’s a cheer on the screen as the winning team puts down another try. Jim doesn’t tear his attention from Leonard, just jerks his thumb to the TV.

Leonard gives him a look that’s part exasperation tossed in with something Jim can’t identify. Consideration? Consternation? Plain old confusion?

It’s gone a second later either way, and Leonard says, “You can’t sign up for things and leave when you’re not part of the winning team. You stick it out.”

“We’re talking about sport here,” Jim says. “A _game_. But anyway, yeah, sure, I’ll bite -- what if it’s the management. What if no one on the team is a team player. Hikaru,” Jim says, glancing over to him. “What was their issue again? With your guys?”

“Ego,” Hikaru says without missing a beat. He doesn’t even bother looking away from the screen.

Jim turns back to Leonard. “Ego.”

Leonard doesn't respond. Just gives him another look that's part one identifiable and the other part not.

By the time Hikaru’s team loses and Hikaru has headed home, Leonard’s nodded off. He’s got his arms folded and head listed to the side, his expression slack and mouth open just a little.

Jim creeps around the apartment to clear things away, switching off the TV last and turning back to Leonard to coax him awake. He doesn’t get quite that far though, standing there in the semi-dark and staring at Leonard. Jim takes in his dark hair, his dark shirt, and the jeans he wears. Leonard’s feet are bare. He’s got long toes.

It’s easy to picture a younger version of Leonard McCoy playing baseball. Bat aloft in his hands, face obscured by the grill of his helmet. Jim pictures himself at one of Leonard’s games. Sitting up there in the stands with the sun beating down against his bare neck, watching as Leonard gets tagged out, or misses one too many times and is sent off.

Jim smells popcorn and sunscreen, hears the murmur and shouting of the spectators as he watches Leonard yank the helmet off his head, hair sticking to his red face with sweat. Leonard’s frowning, brow creased up in a soft imitation to how it creases in the way Jim knows.

The winning team cheers, exchange hard slaps on the back, and dump full bottles of blue sports drink on each other as Leonard’s team slinks into the cages.

It makes something sweet ache in Jim’s chest. It makes him wish that he’d actually been there for one of those games so that he could have slung an arm across Leonard’s sweaty shoulders and felt the heat that would have rolled off him as he told Leonard not to worry about it, that he’d kick ass in the next game.

Jim stirs and catches himself. He grins and rolls his eyes, embarrassed at his own imagination, and glad that it’s all in his head where no one can see.

He ends up leaving Leonard on the couch. He wakes up in his bedroom the next morning to the sound of Leonard tripping over in his living room, followed by a solid thud, followed by swearing.

“Close the door after you,” Jim calls out, voice hoarse with sleep, and Leonard says something back that’s cut off by the slam of the front door.

Jim rolls onto his stomach in his bed, the sheets tangled at his waist, and he stuffs his face in the pillows to hide his grin.

-

Leonard integrates himself into Jim’s schedule, more or less. He comes by Friday nights where he can, and supports Hikaru’s team while Jim rolls his eyes and insists that he doesn’t get it. There’s the occasional visit throughout the week, too, but those mostly consist of Jim making sure Leonard does that thing involving food because he’s caught on that Leonard bypasses eating in favour of sleep a lot, and that’s no way to live when Leonard's got a buddy next door who can make an awesome vegan carbonara.

The end of southern hemisphere winter coincides with the end of the rugby season. Hikaru’s team doesn’t make it anywhere near to the finals. They’re languishing at the bottom of the ladder, and only just miss out gaining the wooden spoon for the season. Hikaru calls it a reverse trophy, since it’s for coming last.

But the team does have one last game before the season’s done for them.

That Friday, Hikaru claims the beanbag while Jim and Leonard sack out on the couch. Jim’s got the windows open, the curtains shoved back, and the breeze that comes in brings with it a mellow cool along with the faint sound of traffic.

“You plan to watch the finals?” Leonard asks Hikaru as he hands Jim a beer.

The cold bottle is a shock to Jim’s palms, and it skitters through his body.

“May as well,” Hikaru says.

“Or we can watch another sport,” Jim says. “Or basically anything else. Literally anything.”

Everyone ignores him.

The game starts, and Hikaru’s team has the kick-off, the ball clearing nearly across the entire field into the open arms of -- what Jim now knows; the things he does for his friends -- to be the opposing fullback.

The fullback tears up the neon green field, and is knocked off his feet in a brutal tackle. Leonard swears under his breath.

The game continues on in the same vein until Leonard says, “They’re gonna win tonight,” with his accent particularly slack.

“Yeah?” Jim says. “How can you tell?”

Leonard gestures to the screen with his bottle and Jim passes the TV a glance before he turns back to Leonard.

“You can see it,” Leonard says. “They’re keen. They’re reading each other’s plays before they’re even playin’ em. Ain’t that right, Sulu?”

Hikaru has his fist pressed against his mouth, dark eyes fixed on the screen, but he nods, and Leonard aims Jim a grin at that -- a quirk of full lips that makes something clench hard in the pit of Jim’s stomach. That makes him realize how warm the room is, and how Leonard is sprawled out on the couch there, beer cradled in the fold of his leg.

It also makes him realize how the light of the TV screen and overhead sets Leonard’s skin aglow, which is, Jim knows, ridiculous. It really, honestly, truly is, but the point stands. Especially because it highlights the way shadows collect under the cut of Leonard’s exposed collarbones, and in the open dip of his shirt.

“When did you get so interested in this,” Jim hears himself ask. He hears the rougher sound of his own voice, and he swallows and forces himself to continue. “I thought you said this was all senseless carnage.”

Leonard shrugs and takes a pull of beer. Jim stares at his profile for a moment longer and turns back to the TV in an effort to set his wayward focus back onto the game.

Jim’s known Hikaru since high school, when he’d joined the school year a couple months in and Hikaru had said, “Hey, I’m Hikaru,” and sat down with him at lunch.

That particular year, Hikaru had been on the track team as a middle distance runner, but he traded it for fencing a little later on, somehow managing to convince Jim to join with him. Hikaru had picked fencing up easy enough to have participated in a couple of competitions, whereas Jim concentrated on mastering the art of not poking his eye out with the foil.

What he’s saying is, Jim knows how Hikaru gets when there’s a win on the horizon and he’s stuck on the sideline. There’s a tension that runs through the body, that makes everything wire-tight, like he’s doing everything he can not to simply cut in and make the winning play himself.

“Don’t break my TV,” Jim warns.

Hikaru gives him the finger without looking, and Leonard huffs something of a laugh. Jim lets them know they’re all jackasses.

There’s five minutes left in the game.

Hikaru’s team had used everything they had in the first half to pull ahead in points, but the gap has closed so that they’re riding even now and the opposing team has possession.

Leonard’s gone still and tense. Hell, Jim has, too, almost afraid to breathe. Their team has been at this point before -- so close to winning, only to choke at the last second, undone by simple mistakes. Jim has watched them enough not to hope, but he can’t help but to do so.

The opposing team is on their tryline now with four minutes left. The man in possession dives just as the their team tackles, and the heap of players fall over the tryline but the ball doesn’t hit the ground.

It doesn’t hit the ground.

The referee crosses his arms over his head to signal ‘no try’ and there’s a roar in the crowd.

It’s a goal line drop out, and the opposing team kicks out with three minutes left. The camera zooms out, showing the high arc of the football. It goes deep into the other half of the field.

The wing of Hikaru’s team picks catches the ball on the full. Jim recognises him by his shoes, gold on the grass -- Chekov; wiry and fast -- and he twists away from a potential tackle and fucking _runs_.

“Holy shit,” Jim says.

Chekov shoots up the length of the field, aimed towards his try line. He crosses the half-way mark. Forty metres. Twenty. Ten. He sidesteps each tackle thrown at him, and shakes off the ones that make fleeting contact.

“Holy shit,” Jim says again as Hikaru surges off the beanbag and yells at Chekov to _dive already, you beautiful man._

Like he hears him, Chekov throws himself over the try line, grounds the ball hard, and pops back up to receive the rest of his team throwing themselves into his arms. The try pulls then four points ahead. They've won.

“We did it,” Jim’s saying, hands shoved in his hair. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit!” Hikaru’s going, laughing, and Jim yanks Hikaru over to shake him and then cuff him ‘round the head.

Hikaru feigns a swing at him, then feigns a kick at him, still laughing.

Jim turns on Leonard. “You see that? You saw that right?”

Leonard’s grinning at him, really grinning at him, with his expression open and eyes crinkled at the corners. Jim drops to his knees on the couch, tucked neatly between the open spread of Leonard’s legs as his hands come down hard on Leonard’s shoulders.

It’s only when Jim notices the firm muscles under his hands that he sees how he’s practically in Leonard’s lap, and that Leonard’s staring back, wide-eyed, his smile shocked off his face.

Jim’s never acted in his life, but he puts everything he has into it when he goes, “We won!” ruffling Leonard’s hair with both hands before he clambers off.

His ears burn and the back of his neck burns, and the skin of his hips burns where Leonard’s hands had rested for a too-brief moment to steady him. When Jim goes to the kitchen, he has to shove his face in the fridge to get his thoughts back on track before he pulls a couple more beers out and kicks the fridge door shut after him.

-

A knock on the door jerks Jim from sleep. The TV is on again and the light hurts his eyes, and he swore he had a watch on, or had a clock nearby, something, anything with the time on it.

Swearing, he gropes the couch and what he can reach of the floor until he finds his cell. Jim squints at the screen, and a long moment passes before he’s able to recognise ‘01:49’ as a specific time instead of a senseless arrangement of numbers.

Jim scrubs his face and staggers off the couch to the door, fumbling it open. Leonard’s standing there in his scrubs. The dim light of the hallway hurts Jim’s eyes, and he’s tired and can’t remember what day it is, but despite it all, circumstances be damned, he’s still pleased to see Leonard there. He likes seeing Leonard’s face. He likes it.

“I’m hearing it again,” Leonard says, which frankly means nothing to Jim.

There’s a pause where Leonard’s clearly expecting a response, and when he doesn’t, he clarifies, “The music.”

Jim nods. Then stops. “...Turn it off then?”

“What? No. Listen. The music that I thought was from you.”

With that, Jim’s far more awake. Or at least a little more. The complaints. The letters. That time Leonard had turned up at his door, waltzed right in into his apartment and promptly fell asleep on his couch. How could Jim forget.

“Yeah?” Jim leans forward to glance up and down the hall, as if the source of the sound would be immediately obvious. “I’m not hearing anything here. At least. I don’t think.”

He strains to listen, his head cocked one way as if the angle would help.

“Yeah, well, it’s pretty damn clear in my room,” Leonard says.

“Let’s go then.”

“Huh?”

Jim indicates to Leonard’s still open door and the wedge of shadow beyond it.

“Apart from the fact that I’m curious, especially since I’ve taken the fall for whoever this person is--” Leonard scowls hard, but Jim knows him well enough by now to recognise that it’s mostly show and that he’s still embarrassed. He tries not to grin and mostly fails. “If we’re solving this mystery tonight, I gotta know what you’re talking about.”

Leonard rubs his face and sighs. All at once, Jim is aware of the hour and of Leonard’s fatigue, and it swells in his chest. He’s this close to telling Leonard to forget it and just crash on his couch for the night and they’ll look at it again when it’s not two in the morning, but whatever this is, it can’t go on.

“Hey,” Jim says, softer. “Sooner we do this, the sooner you can sleep in silence. But also, have you ever thought of earplugs?”

“I need to hear my alarm,” Leonard says.

“Right. You know you can get a pillow that vibrates? My aunt’s deaf and uses one.”

“I just really want the music to stop, Jim,” Leonard says, exasperated. “That's all.”

Jim’s only been in Leonard’s apartment a couple of times comparatively to the near countless Leonard’s been in his. He knows that by sheer chance, Leonard has his lounge room arranged in the same way as Jim’s. They also both have green couches, except Leonard’s is leather and not as comfortable.

“Which is why I didn’t immediately walk back out,” Leonard had explained when Jim had asked about how he had ever confused the two in the first place. “I thought it was mine. They’re both green.”

“Yours is leather. And the fact there was another person in the room? A surprise roommate?” Jim had said. “That didn’t strike you as odd?”

Leonard had shifted the topic after that, but he’d also gone red so Jim had counted it as a win.

Right then in Leonard’s apartment, all the lights were off, save for the bedroom. Leonard leads the way there, and the next thing Jim realizes is, is that they’re standing in the middle of Leonard’s bedroom.

Leonard’s bed with its rumpled sheets is at his left, and the door is at his right, and everything is messier than he’d expected, but he can't really check it out right now because Leonard’s standing in front of him and staring intently at his face.

“Uh,” Jim says. Then he goes, “Oh,” because there is music.

It comes from a corner of the room, or from under the floors. Somewhere unspecific and shifting, and Jim can see why pinning it on the guy next door would make the most sense to someone, especially at two in the morning.

Jim glances around the room, searching, scratching his belly through his shirt while gently pushing aside the residual smugness that comes with the irrefutable fact that the music is not his.

“It’s really catchy.”

“Well, thank god for that,” Leonard goes, sour. “If it's keeping me up it may was well be.”

Jim smiles at him, and Leonard sets his jaw and looks away.

They follow the music, checking along the walls first, and then behind and under Leonard’s bed. Jim ends up sitting cross-legged on it, and he tells Leonard that it's hard, and asks how does he sleep.

“It’s memory foam,” Leonard tells him, the words short. “It’s good for my back.”

“There's no _bounce_ ,” Jim says, and demonstrates.

Leonard goes red and doesn't answer.

The music that drifts is bassy and catchy, like he’d said. It’s good driving music, and it makes Jim think of hours in the car with his windows down, the wind biting his face as he cruises down the highway. He chases the visual, now thinking of the stretch of the desert night sky and the almost tangible sense of how small he was under it. How apt it was that they called space _space._

“We should go on a road trip sometime,” he tells Leonard, who’s sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing his face with his hands.

Leonard’s in his scrubs, the material taut across the expanse of his shoulders. Jim thinks of the desert sky again, the milky glitter of stars on the surface of it. And he thinks about pressing the flat of his hand at the base of Leonard’s neck there, over the bone, and pushing. It makes him warm. Drowsy.

“What for,” is Leonard’s muffled answer.

“It’ll be fun.”

The music continues, shifting to something slower, but richer and more textured to make up for it.

Jim says, “C’mon, Leo.”

“Don’t call me Leo.”

“Len.”

“No.”

“Leonardo.”

Leonard heaves a sigh.

“C’mon,” Jim says again, hauling off the bed. He grabs Leonard’s shoulder for balance and digs his thumb in the muscle he finds there. “We’ll try down a level and up a level, and then we’ll try again next time.”

Leonard grumbles something, and heaves himself up, taking Jim’s hand when it’s offered, the contact warm and solid. Jim holds his hand for a second longer than necessary before he lets go.

The source of the music is the apartment one floor down from Leonard’s. The guy who opens the door is somewhat unimpressed, and Jim thinks that it should be harder to be unimpressed when you have a bowl cut, but apparently not.

“Your music,” Leonard says, before Jim can even open his mouth. “Is too loud. Turn it off. Stop playing it when it's two in the morning.”

A pause follows, and the guy excuses himself, closes the door -- here, Leonard makes an indignant sound and Jim has to duck his head to hide the grin -- and returns a minute later.

“I apologize,” the guy says. “I did not realize that my headphones were,” the guy’s face hardens like he can't believe he's saying it and doing so hurts intensely. “...Incorrectly connected.”

“Now you know,” Leonard bites out.

“Sorry,” Jim says. “What he means is that it’s fine. Just a mistake. You’re only human.”

The guy offers another stilted apology and this time Leonard grudgingly accepts. The entire process reminds Jim painfully of the forced resolution of every fight his niece (4) and nephew (5) have that he has to bite his lip until they’re halfway up the stairs back to their floor.

His laughter rings through the stairwell, and Leonard glares at him until he’s explained.

“It’s _exactly_ the same,” Jim’s saying for the third time when Leonard asks, “Where’re your folks anyway?”

“Huh?” Jim’s stomach still hurts from laughing and his face is hot, grinning as he regards Leonard. “Oh, mostly Iowa. Ma’s originally from there. You? No wait. Let me guess: Texas. North Carolina. South? Arkan _saw_. Kansas?”

“Georgia, you ass.”

“I was going to get there eventually.”

“No you weren’t. No one remembers Georgia.”

It’s nearly three in the morning and the building is quiet around them. They’ve stopped outside Jim’s door. The carpet is fuzzy under Jim’s bare feet, and the hallway is still and warm around them. The lights overhead cast everything in an orange hue, the kind that turns everything meaningful and intimate.

“Hey,” Jim says. “You know what annoyed me the most? About the whole thing?”

“What?” Leonard asks.

Jim stops there. It’s like he’s gotten ahead of himself now. He’s said too much about himself, revealed something that he was only half prepared to. Leonard waits, a question on his face, standing there patiently despite the exhaustion that’s clearly present. Jim flicks his gaze down to the floor and back up.

“I just... don’t like being accused of things that aren’t my fault.”

“I don’t think anyone does, Jim.”

“No, listen. Listen.” Jim stops again and licks his lips. “We moved around a lot growing up. I saw a of schools, some better than others. You know how it is. Same assholes in each one though. I was new and kind of funny looking as a kid, really short. I lost five teeth at once when I fell of my bike--”

“Jim--”

“No, listen,” Jim says. “Easy target, y’know?  Whatever fight I was in, even if it was my damn lunch money they were taking, it was my fault. _Kirk started it_. Sometimes I thought, hey, why not start it. Why not throw the first punch. What did it matter if it’s _my fault_ anyway, right? Obviously I’m fine now. And fortunately for the both of us, I didn’t get a sound system to one-up you. I gave you a free pass because you’re cute, next time though--”

Jim gives Leonard finger guns because he’s completely out of his depth. He’s tired and he’s going to have to be up and functioning in three hours, and finger guns were invented to distract people from the enormity of things admitted in these sorts of circumstances.

Jim’s familiar with Leonard’s exceptionally expressive face, and he knows that Leonard’s not pitying him or feeling bad for him, but he is feeling _something_ that Jim had only seen in hints before. It's big and encompassing, and Jim has entertained it, sure.

But now it's right there on Leonard’s face, in the gentle crease of his brow _._ Jim could trace it with his fingers if he wanted to. Leonard’s eyes are dark, dark brown in the hallway when they're almost green everywhere else, everything about him open in a way that makes Jim feel open in return.

“So,” Jim says it on a void of breath. “So, I guess that’s it then. Mystery solved.”

“Mystery solved,” Leonard repeats, quiet.

“Night, Leonardo.”

“Night, Jim.”

Jim hurriedly enters his apartment and locks the door, and then collapses against it feeling like he’s run a race that he’s not sure if he’s won or lost.

-

The guy who Jim had taken the fall for -- Spock -- turns out to be a sound engineer who composes music in his downtime.

“When you’re stressed,” Leonard says the next time they all manage to share space, when Jim comes with Leonard to check the mail and they find Spock just leaving.

“When I find it more difficult than usual to sleep after a particularly long day at work,” Spock corrects, after a pause.

“So, when you’re stressed.”

Jim’s fairly certain they’re not exactly sure of what to make of each other and they stick to a particular brand of polite, albeit prickly, interaction for an extended period of time.

Jim catches Spock in the elevator one afternoon, and they’re both watching the numbers flick over when Jim turns to him and says, “Hey, come help me build a bookshelf this weekend.”

Spock regards him fully and raises his eyebrows. Leonard has commented on Spock’s tendency to do this.

“It’s like he wants to make sure we don’t miss it,” being his exact words.

Jim manages not to laugh at the memory, reworking the force of it into a particularly bright smile.

“C’mon,” he says. “It’ll be fun. I’ll throw on a game. Order a couple of pizzas...”

“I am expecting company,” Spock says.

“They can come, too,” Jim says as the doors open on Spock’s floor.

“Consider it a personal favour to Leonard,” he calls after Spock. “He’s been complaining about building it since I bought it!”

Leonard comes over early Saturday morning to stare balefully at the flatpacks Jim has leaned up against the wall.

“You’re the one always telling me to finish unpacking, and I quote: ‘get actual shelves because I’m tired of coming here and tripping over your shit’,” Jim says. He continues grandly. “I’ve also procured further help.”

“Who says that casually. No one,” Leonard doesn’t tear his eyes from the boxes as he says it, as if he’s expecting them to come to life and press gang him into building them. ”So what if I said that. And it didn’t mean I was volunteering either. You do realize that those instructions come in a language no one knows, right?”

“Well then,” Jim says. “I appreciate your sacrifice and remind me to give you my thanks personally later.”

It’s a thrill to say things like that. It makes his heart beat a little faster in his chest each time, like it does now, body flushed with warmth because Leonard lets it happen. He doesn’t joke or give him any looks, just lets it happen. Which is basically permission, Jim figures, to see how far he can go.

Hikaru turns up with his new boyfriend -- Ben -- in tow. Spock comes with his partner, Nyota.

After lunch and after they’ve put together half the bookshelf, Jim breaks out the fancy scotch that Leonard had gifted him.

Before they break the seal though, Jim snaps a quick picture of it and sends to Scotty on the other side of the country. Scotty immediately texts back a bunch of exclamation points and demands to know when he developed a taste, which is pretty rich coming from a guy who drinks anything.

_an also ill be up ur side’a town the next mnth so there better be summa that left._

Jim sends back a row of _100%_ emoticons.

“Gather round friends,” Hikaru saying while Jim’s distracted. “Let me regale you with the time Jim called fencing a nerd sport that anyone could do, and how he ended up in emergency after his first lesson.”

“I'm confused,” Leonard says. “I thought this was going to be a bad story.”

It’s late afternoon when everyone leaves. The heat of the day eases into a cooler evening, and Jim opens the windows to catch whatever breeze comes by. There’s a hint of winter on it, sharp and crisp, and a little smoky. It reminds Jim of his yearly road trip across the country to his family, where he'll sit on the porch and catch up with his brother after a day spent rolling around in the snow with his niece and nephew.

His mother will ask when he's going to come back to Iowa, like she does every year, and yeah, he’s gone back every so often for an extended stopover before heading to another part of the country. But this time Jim thinks he’ll say, _you know, I like where I am_ and, _I might stay a bit longer_. Or even, _Sorry Ma, but I've just built a bookshelf and got myself a dining table so I can’t go anywhere just yet._

“I like your table best, I think,” Leonard says, voice breaking through Jim’s thoughts. “I like how you can’t have chairs because there’s no room.”

Jim slings himself next to Leonard on the couch. He stretches his legs out and settles on the cushions with the bonelessness that comes at the end of a full day spent in good company, eating good food, and with the successful construction of flatpack furniture.

“Let me have this,” Jim says. “I read that we as a people spend too much time sitting down anyway.”

“‘We as a people’, sure,” Leonard says. “You as a person, Jim, are going to run into that thing when you forget it exists come morning.”

“Probably,” Jim concedes.

The silence between them is the pleasant, easy kind. Jim’s considering what to have for dinner and if Leonard would like to stay for it and help him test out the dining table.

The question is right on his lips when Leonard says, “You’re staying then? You’ve talked about moving before.”

“Huh?”

Leonard indicates to the room and Jim sees how it’s fleshed out now, like it’s actually lived-in instead of half-packed to leave. The bookshelf is filled with Jim’s old textbooks and newer industry related literature, and the table has a smattering of cups and plates left on it.

“Guess you’re stuck with me for a little bit longer then,” Jim says.

“I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“You know it’s nice,” Jim says after a minute. “I’m lucky to have this, really. I’ve told you before that I moved around as a kid, right? So this--” Jim gestures. “Was always the dream. Not having to worry about losing stuff on the move, or tossing everything out because there’s no space. My own space and my own stuff.”

Jim surveys it all and turns back to Leonard. "What was your thing then? Your dream?"

Leonard shrugs, but there's a tightness to the gesture that suggests something more than the casual nature of it. “I want to be a doctor.”

Jim also notices the want. Not wanted. “Yeah? Too expensive, or...?”

“I’ve most of a medical degree to my name.”

“You do?”

“You callin’ me a liar, Jim?” Leonard goes, but it’s all syrup and loose, with Leonard’s knee nudging against Jim’s thigh and staying there.

“I’m not calling you anything,” Jim says. “Where’d you put the rest of it then? You lost that in the move from Georgia?”

This time Leonard shrugs. “Life. It was a bad time what with my old man getting sick and my divorce going through.”

“Wait,” Jim says. “Wait wait wait. You were married?”

“Briefly. For a couple of years. Divorced nearly eight years ago now.”

Jim stares at Leonard’s profile and then down to Leonard’s hand, where a wedding band would have sat. There’s no ring there, of course, not even a suggestion of one. Leonard’s expression is even, but he fidgets with the beer he’s holding, taking frequent sips.

“Okay. Wow,” Jim says. “High school sweethearts?”

“More or less.”

“My parents were as well.”

Leonard passes him a look then.

“Your old man get better?” Jim asks.

“No, he didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Leonard says. “As long as you don't tell me that god works in mysterious ways or that it happens for a reason. Yeah, sure, it happens for a reason, and that reason is that there isn’t one. No grand plan to it. Everybody just keeps waking up until they don’t anymore and the rest of us keep goin’ on. Make do.”

“C’mon, life's a bit more cheery than that,” Jim says, nudging him.

Leonard scoffs, but Jim can tell it’s mostly for show.

“So, then,” Leonard says after a moment. “What’s your story?”

Jim’s tempted to shrug the question off, almost tells Leonard that he already got his story.

But then he goes, “My dad died while serving. Ma was still in though, and wanted to give us -- me and my brother -- stability. We grew up with my uncle. Even then, we still moved around a bit because my uncle was a jackass always chasing shit that got nowhere. Always putting all his money towards some venture. Sam left as soon as he was old enough,” Jim can’t help the bitterness in his voice here, but he pushes on.

“Mom did her stint and reintegrated, but I think she found it hard to settle. She was used to moving around, too. I think she expected it half the time. So, you know, you make friends and then you have to move. You settle into this place, and then you have to pack it up for somewhere else.”

“I’m sorry,” Leonard says. "That must have been hard."

“It’s okay,” Jim says. He nudges Leonard after a pause and grins. “Long as you don’t tell me god works in mysterious ways or that it happens for a reason, then we’re good.”

“Shit happens then,” Leonard says, holding out his beer.

Jim knocks his against it. “Shit happens.”

-

There’s still a conversation that has yet to happen, and it sits in the background of their interactions over the following week.

It’s Wednesday, and Leonard’s over and dozing on Jim’s couch as he seems to do these days. Jim gets it. It’s a comfortable couch.

The TV is on and no one’s watching. They’ve had dinner, and Jim’s on the couch beside Leonard, aware of Leonard’s weight and the steady in-and-out of his breathing. There’s a sense of inevitability that colors the night. Some definite idea about what is going to happen and a potential outcome that makes excitement spark in his chest as it does also make his palms sweat. Jim keeps _looking_ at Leonard. Or maybe he’s checking. He’s not entirely sure.

Leonard is the first to speak. “I’m going to finish my degree,” he says.

“Yeah?” Jim says. “Should I be calling you Doctor McCoy, then? How sexy is that. Everyone loves a doctor.”

“My father was a doctor, too,” Leonard snaps, but he barely reacts otherwise. “And he had a weak chin.”

Jim laughs. “Oh, you say that as if it's a bad thing,” and he reaches out and catches Leonard’s chin. “So not ‘Doctor McCoy’ then? Is that too much? How about ‘sawbones’? What about _bones_.”

“What about not,” Leonard says.

Jim smiles, still holding Leonard’s chin.

He does not pull Leonard in and kiss him.

He does not do that, but he does think of it long enough that Leonard asks him, “Well?”

Jim drags his attention back up from where it had caught on his own hand, holding Leonard in place. His skin warm and stubbled under Jim’s fingers, and the hint of Leonard’s breath skims against the back of Jim’s hand.

“Huh?” Jim goes, belatedly. “Hey, so, when you were married before, right? And it didn’t work out, why didn’t it?”

Leonard’s eyes are dark. There’s barely any green in them now.

“Why didn’t it?” he repeats. “You know why.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jim says. “I want you to tell me anyway.”

Leonard licks his lips and Jim’s eyes drop back down to track the movement.

“I thought we could do it,” Leonard says, finally. “We were young. We had just graduated. Wanted to make it official. But we had so much growing up to do, and turns out that a lot of what we wanted out of life didn’t exactly align. I had this idea in my head that we were a team--”

Here, Leonard’s expression turns self-depreciating, his half-smile wry. “No different to my baseball team. Jesus Christ, Jim. A bunch of guys with barely any idea as to the correct way to throw a goddamn ball, but we’d managed to pull it together and win a game. How is that in any way comparable to a marriage? Tell me about my ego, Jim.”

“I like your ego.”

Leonard huffs a laugh that Jim feels through his fingers more than he hears it.

“So now here we are,” Leonard says. “You always ready to leave, and me who thinks marriage is a sport where there’s a medal at the end for winning.”

“You know,” Jim says. “I still think we have a pretty good shot at this, if you wanted to give it a go. Have you seen my bookshelf? My dining table? They’re pretty good. They’re sturdy. I promise you they’re not going anywhere. Now my question is, are you ready to step up to bat? Or are you going to strike out before you even start?”

This time Leonard does laugh out loud, and it turns into a groan as he leans in to press his forehead against Jim’s.

“Are you going to kiss me now,” Leonard asks. “Or continue with the sports metaphors.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Jim says, as he angles his head to lean in. Right before he kisses Leonard, he goes, “We’re on the same team.”

 

**A YEAR LATER**

 

Jim’s putting the leftovers in the fridge when there’s a fumbling at the door. It stops and then it starts again. Jim closes the fridge and hurries across the apartment to pull it open, finding Bones on the other side struggling to stab the key into the lock. Bones stops and looks up, forehead creased in confusion, like he doesn’t understand where the door has gone and why Jim is looking at him in place of it.

“Hey,” Jim says, quickly ushering Bones in and leading him to the couch. “I thought you were going to crash at the hospital. Don’t you have another round in like… three hours?”

“Yeah,” Bones slurs. “Rather be here.”

“You think you can eat something?”

Bones shakes his head. “Tell me why I wanted to specialize in surgery again.”

“Because it's what your father did,” Jim says. “And you always looked up to him. You like to help people.”

Jim draws a sheet over Bones once he’s down, and then goes to turn the TV off. The room settles into silence, nothing but Bones’s breathing that’s quickly shifting to sleep. Jim sets aside the remote and moves carefully to the kitchen, when he’s stopped by Bones’s voice.

“Hey,” Bones says.

“Hmm?”

“I read your text.”

It takes a second for Jim to remember, but then he does, recalling how he’d sent it during his lunch break in the office. How he’d typed it all up and read back over the words barely believing that he’d written them.

_I got offered partner at the firm. We celebrate the next day u have off._

Then: _The day in bed counts as a celebration btw._

(Then: _Have a good day. I’ll see u when u get home later_ )

“Yeah?” Jim goes, already grinning.

Bones shifts on the couch like he’s trying to sit up, and Jim crosses the room, and presses his hand to Bones’s shoulder and tells him not to worry about it. Tells him to get to sleep while he has the time to. Bones wraps his hand around Jim’s wrist and pulls him down to kiss.

“Congratulations,” he says when he draws back. “How does it feel to be the youngest partner for a top tier firm?"

“This is better,” Jim says, leaning forward to press another sound kiss to Bones’s mouth. It’s a little off the mark, hits the corner, but Jim still considers it a win. “Now go to sleep.”

“Fine, fine,” Bones says, settling back. “Love you.”

“Yeah,” Jim says. “Me, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to talk McKirk to me :D


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